


Well That's Just Ducky

by Camlann



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, SHIELD Agent Darcy Lewis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2017-12-27 07:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/976019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camlann/pseuds/Camlann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James "Bucky" Barnes and Darcy Lewis shiplets. Drabbles. Little things that involve them being together. Ducky, for short.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Waltz On By

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're in my colors.

Of course it has to be a big, old scary mansion on the outskirts of the city.

And of _course_ it had to be a masquerade party. Stark was no fool and he knew what his buyers and partners wanted out of a Halloween bash.

But that didn’t mean Darcy appreciated it, cringing as she slipped from the limo that had brought her and a few other agents to the ball. It wasn’t babysitting duty, that’s what they had been told. It was mingling and finding contacts in a world of superheroes that possibly might want to actually work with SHIELD on a longer term basis than the odd fight. And maybe even some foreign relations, who really knew with the people Stark invited to these things?

Darcy, however, was not one for horror. Which could be why when she’d heard that she was chosen to be going, she’d gone out and gotten a vampire hunter costume. Or, more accurately, the ball gown of one. Because screw this, she wasn’t going down without a fight, and knowing superheroes as she did, there would be a fight. Especially in hold places that held probably more ghosts and ghouls than wine. Which at a shindig like this would be impressive to say the least.

Van Helsing costume in place, red dress hugging curves the woman had forgotten she’d had after working at SHIELD and in suits so long recently, Darcy meandered up the front stairs and adeptly nailed one of the popping out ghosts in the face.

With a yelp of, “Ow!” because plastic was hard and her hand was soft, Darcy growled and continued to stomp her way inside.

She’s not as graceful as she’d like to be. Not like some of the women inside. And she’s not as well spoken, either. But Darcy skirts the outsides of the party and keeps her mask in place, gold edges around her eyes as they sweep from couple to couple. There’s Iron Man, himself, with a lovely woman in silver velvet. Oh wait… that’s totally Ms. Potts and Darcy is pretty sure her jaw makes a crack as it hits the floor.

Yeah, she’s never going to be that graceful and she suddenly wished that Thor was there. At least she wouldn’t be in red seemingly alone… He would probably still have his cape. And frankly, he wouldn’t be alone tonight with one.

She does make a few connections but it’s fairly early when she finds herself wishing she could leave. The ball is grand, in all senses of the word, but she’s still off to the side in little golden flats and a swishy ball gown with no dances under her belt.

The woman is insanely glad that she doesn’t have a dance card like people used to in the older days. Jesus, she’d be so in trouble if she did.

The haunting music and speeches end and by then, Darcy is slowly drifting towards the door. Maybe there’s a haunted garden or something outside? Maybe there’s just… nothing outside. Or worse, actual ghosts. She doesn’t know what to believe anymore, in a realm of magic and aliens. So ghosts could totally be on the agenda. And with her compass of horror… maybe she shouldn’t step outside.

Besides, it already feels like she’s being watched and Darcy wonders as she hesitates to slip out the door why anyone would be watching _her_.

She does, however, end up outside. It’s cooler there, thank Heavens. The heat of dancing bodies and the swirl of the dry ice machine to give it ‘atmosphere’ is totally awesome but it’s like a furnace. And if she sees her boss waltz in front of her one more time with that blank smile on his face, she’s gonna vomit on his fancy, blue shoes and then promptly pass out from heat stroke.

It is lit in the gardens, for which Darcy is thankful. And not eerily either. Just plain old, white Christmas lights and she’s wondering if they have the wrong holiday. It makes her laugh, just slightly, all by herself. And she crunches over the gravel and wafts around, for a moment or two pretending to be a princess and this being her manor away from the city. Of having a grander and more stately life than she had ever had, stopping and looking at a few of the winter flowers that are starting to bud in the garden beds.

The shifting of stones when she hasn’t moved is what gives away the person behind her. And Darcy feels in the folds of her dress for her taser, but there’s a clearing of a throat and she doesn’t think an attacker would be that nice.

He’s tall, whoever he is. His coat has tails and is all greys and blacks. His mask is silver and obscures a lot of his face. From here, Darcy can’t see his eyes so well, but they look dark and she squints at the stranger, wondering what he’s doing out there. He could be handsome, he has a build that’s nice and sturdy. But she didn’t come out here for company. And he doesn’t seem intent on leaving. Tucking curls behind her ears, Darcy does the only thing she can think of. She responds normally.

“Come here often?”

There’s the softest of quirks to his lips and Darcy wonders who the Hell is behind the mask. She can’t place him, this man with black gloves who steps more into the twinkling lights of an almost barren garden.

“No. But I don’t think any of us do. You’re not dancing.”

“I don’t dance, dude.”

“You should.”

“It’s not a should or shouldn’t thing. People gotta ask you first, silly.”

And she’s playing it off, fairly well too, she thinks. Because she’s the only one in red and maybe she’d chosen it because it was Thor’s colors too. But the point mainly was that she looked good in red and knew it. And it was from Van Helsing, how could she not love it? But the stranger didn’t seem intent on being silly with her, because he extended his hand as a new song started up on the string section of whatever band was up in the balcony over the ballroom.

Gotta love Stark parties. They always did happen in style.

“Maybe I can change your mind.”

“Well, I guess if you want to.”

A white glove meets his black one and Darcy finds herself chest to chest with someone who is just as strong and sturdy as he looks. And he takes her around the little pathway of the garden, dancing with her as she slowly gains the steps and learns. There’s a dip and a spin and she’s right back there with him, not sure what to think or do or say.

So it’s quiet and she finds that one song leads into the next and he takes her through all the different parts of the garden. Blooming flowers she can’t recognize pass with a waltz. Buds pass with something a little jazzy. Bare limbs and broken leaves are danced over with something slow and mournful. And in the end, she finds herself with a kiss to the back of her hand as she’s on the bottom stair of the pathway back into the ballroom. It’s like a magic spell is lifting and she steps off of it, refusing to go just yet. There’s no words and she doesn’t mind, for once. She’s… comfortable. So much so that words would only, seemingly, get in the way.

“Why me?”

“You’re in my colors.”

“But… I’m just in red.”

“Exactly.”

There’s a toll and announcement inside that interrupts her counter, that masks should be removed because the time is nigh. Or something like that, Darcy isn’t paying much attention. Instead, she’s lost in a stranger’s blue eyes and she reaches up to remove his mask only to find his hands firm on her wrists.

Arms lowered for her, Darcy bites into her lip and flakes her lipstick off with white teeth, almost pouting with not knowing. Not getting a chance to see this stranger and meet him properly. She pulls back when he reaches for hers, but a gentle cup to her cheek finds her resistance fleeing the scene and Darcy closes her eyes and raises her head just a bit as gold and white is removed from her face. She opens her eyes long enough to find lips on her own and then he’s gone, her mask in his hand and Darcy gasps at his speed.

Superhero.

God. _Damn_. It.

“Hey!”

But he’s already like a shadow, gone before the noon chime on a clock. She does search, she’s a proper SHIELD agent after all. And when she’s frowning hard and has her gown in her hands high enough to show off her ankles, she gets back to where she’s been kisses and looks up to find her boss waiting for her.

Coulson helps her up the stairs but doesn’t say anything, though he does eye the darkness like he knows where to look in it to see the secrets of time and space and all that timey-wimey stuff. Darcy doesn’t say anything about the stranger, but she does end up chatting through the rest of the night with the other agents about. Even gets a chance to fawn over Tony Stark for a bit before she’s being swept back to the limo and escorted home.

Laying in bed with her gown on the front of her closet door, Darcy gently runs her hand over the gold detailing and wonders about the man with blue eyes.

Who was he? Why her? And why was red so important?

She doesn’t even notice when she bumps into the same man at work, apologizing to Sergeant Barnes because she’s rushing to a meeting. Darcy already knows he’s strong and sturdy, the hands around her biceps as he raises a brow at her nothing really new. Everyone has a look for her, she’s never watching where she’s going. But that’s not the point and she smiles and laughs and darts past him with a, “Have a good afternoon!” before disappearing into an office.

What she does notice, however, is a red poppy on her desk when she gets back from her meeting, tucked neatly together with her mask from the weekend before and a note saying a place and time to meet.

Darcy thinks, as she holds the flower to her chest and stares at the note suspiciously, even if she is smiling… she thinks that this could be the start of a beautiful thing.


	2. Heat of the Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boy, guns were loud. Darcy blinks and can’t quite hear anything for a moment, the background noise and the rifle going off so close causing her to slump down further towards the asphalt and cover her ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harsh language ahead. <3 Darcy does, in fact, curse like a sailor at times.

It's a kip and kaboodle and oh boy, she's in trouble. Yep, she is definitely in some sort of trouble. Because there is a Big Bad right in front of her and her taser doesn't work on it and now is when training should be kicking in, damn it!

But no. SHIELD has not prepared her for Decepticons and they have definitely not prepared her for being out on the field when the Avengers were called in. Oh, screw this SHIT. Darcy would have legged it if there had been anywhere to go. She was tech, if anything. Not a field agent. Not in the least. She was in heeled boots, for God’s sake! And that reminds her.

“IT’S MY DAY OFF,” she yells into her phone, stomping her foot before throwing herself behind debris and trying to make herself as small as possible. There’s some sort of laser show going on over her head and that wasn’t good either. That couldn’t be safe. Well, obviously it wasn’t safe, but that didn’t always mean that it looked it. Sometimes it just looked like Star Trek, where the person could fall over when they got hit, someone would yell cut, and they’d have to fall over again on the next take. “Fucking aliens. I’ll kick their ass as soon as I get a gun on me that works.”

This was not one of those days and the young woman took a deep breath before she shifted her weight to move.

She didn’t get the chance, a body crashing into hers and keeping her back against the parts of car and concrete and whatever else had been destroyed in the street when these things had landed. It knocks the wind out of her and all she can see is dark hair and a gun. That’s it. She’s dead. She feels dead, sucking in air and wincing when something hits the place she thought she should go. Oh. Maybe she wasn’t dead but she certainly wasn’t doing well, the man that has his knees on either side of her leg that isn’t up to her chest shooting above her head.

Boy, guns were loud. Darcy blinks and can’t quite hear anything for a moment, the background noise and the rifle going off so close causing her to slump down further towards the asphalt and cover her ears. She doesn’t close her eyes though, scanning the area for someplace she can move to that might be just a bit safer.

What she finds instead is a pair of blue eyes and yelps.

_Way to go, Dee. You’re real smooth._

“Left,” he says, and Darcy glances that way and there’s an opening in the debris she could just squeeze through if she tried. She nods once and finds her feet in a crouch, watching the man who has rescued her put his back to where she had been and gauge something she didn’t know. But she could tell he was calculating and he glances at her again, shaking his head. “Should take a picture, it would last longer. But you might die for it.”

She has enough time to press a cherry red lipstick print to his cheek before disappearing where he’d told her to. Sometimes, she loved superheroes. And dude was one, metal arm and all.

It’s not until she’s reported and been debriefed, standing in her little SHIELD dorm room that she shares with someone that’s never there, that she realizes who he is. That she realizes she’s just kissed the Winter Soldier on his cheek and she wonders if Captain America would shield bash her head in if she asked real polite like. Because that was stupid. Very stupid. But she did stupid things in the heat of the moment and she didn’t know if she’d ever see the guy again.

It had seemed okay but now there’s a chance that he’ll see her again and yep.

Stupid.

Idiot.

Little.

Child.

Darcy sighs and sinks into the bed she has, pulling her legs up to cross, and she wonders if she can get away with going home just yet. She was supposed to stay put, put her patootie into a place they could find her, because she had tasered one and had personal knowledge of how that part of the alien worked. Robot. Whatever.

She’d needed the dust out of her hair before she sneezed another time on Sitwell’s shoes, despite doing the werewolf hide into her elbow.

The young woman tips from where she’s seated into her pillow and she wonders if a vacation was in order. Because being a SHIELD agent? Glamorous as she thought it would be, but also really freaking easy to run into superheroes. Or their best friends.

Which was the last thing she needed, Darcy suspects as she idly bats at the lightswitch as her face ends up in her pillow. Today could have gone so much better and not just because her ankle is wrapped to kingdom come because she twisted it walking into SHIELD. Of all places. The woman wants to scream and beat her fists into the cushion but instead rolls over and sighs, closing her eyes and promptly passing out.

Only to wake up to an alarm she did not set and the same blue eyes about a hand away from her. SHIELD has taught her many things. How to react on the fly is one of them, and Darcy sends a palm at the dude’s nose before scrambling to right herself on the bed.

Her wrist seems so tiny in his hand, especially with the chill of metal, and Darcy swallows. He’s the only thing keeping her from falling off the bed and she idly wiggles her fingers to feel the ridges in his grasp. So that’s what it feels like. It’s not like she hasn’t been around Stark’s workshop. It’s been Hell trying to get him to sign some things. But this isn’t like the other robots she knows. This is breathing metal with a man attached. A man who is looking at her with something blank and something curious and Darcy wishes he would choose one because God damn, she doesn’t know whether to blush or cringe.

“Can I help you?” she asks primly, brow arching at this legend and a half as she tugs at her arm. No give. Damn. “Dude. Don’t you know sneaking into the girls dorms is like, totally forbidden? Ten points from Hufflepuff.”

“...”

“Yeah, well. You just keep being Mr. Creeper over there with your hissing and what not, and try not to explode. I’ll be over here. Or I would be if someone would give me back my arm.”

“Wrist.”

“Whatever, man. You’ve got me, whatcha gonna do with me?”

A polaroid picture hits her chest at the same time her wrist it let go. With a squeak, Darcy falls off the side of her bed, at least putting a barrier between her and the strange man. She assumes a position not unlike what she had the afternoon before, back to the bed and one leg in front of her, one to her chest as she looks at the photo between her fingers.

Welp. That’s definitely James Barnes as he is now. Why on Earth would she get a picture of…

Oh.

“Cute,” she murmurs, and the chuckle isn’t supposed to come from above her. Craning her neck back until her head hits the bed, Darcy comes face to face with Bucky and she grimaces at him leaning over her. “You don’t get another kiss.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. Move your ass out, soldier.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I’m a lady, that’s why. Fucker.”

There’s another twitch of lips but Darcy doesn’t even see the merriment she’s caused a second time. She’s only heard it and that makes her frown as she peeks over the bed as the door swings shut.

Ass. With his Jesus hair. And probably his hemp sandals.

“Won’t be so funny when I put a donkey in your room,” she mumbles, flopping back onto her bed. She ends up spinning the picture of him around and around until she slips it into her to go bag for when she gets released back to her apartment. “Palm trees. Too much?”

Definitely wasn’t too much, but she didn’t get to see the moment for herself. She couldn’t even get into his room and she’d huffed at that. Security. Who knew?

And she thinks that’s the end of it. She’s not anyone special, after all. She pulls her hair up into a ponytail, wears sensible shoes and slacks, and does paperwork. She has skirts that come out with tights during the winter, but she’s way more into bouncing around Coulson’s office with the latest findings of patterns historical data than fashion.

Darcy is, for all intents and purposes, quickly making her own place instead of playing wingman to the big brains. She quite likes that and she toddles around work and keeps her taser on her thigh and tries not to get too distracted when she hears Thor in the hallways.

It doesn’t work but she thinks she gets a bit of leeway with the God of Thunder than anyone else. They all know she’s his first and foremost. It’s not like anyone else has claimed her.

Only, that doesn’t seem quite right. Because there’s this guy and he keeps flirting with her and she keeps flirting back, sure. But it doesn’t go beyond that because she’ll watch someone walk by and say, ‘excuse me’ and be off once more because oh hey, Sitwell! Those reports you needed. Totally have those.

She doesn’t know what the big deal is. She flirts. She always has. But he keeps showing up and there’s something old fashioned about him and Darcy tries not to swoon when him and the Captain come in.

Tries. Fails pretty hard the first time, but tries.

And she has his picture in a drawer with pictures of her with the other Avengers. And its’ one big happy box that she has nicknamed Pandora’s holdings. Because they make her happy and sad all at the same time. And sometimes ill, when one of them has been hurt and she goes through them to remind herself that even heroes bleed. And can fall.

Which is how he finds her outside SHIELD a few months later, staring out over the city from the top of the parking garage in the snow. Arms wrapped around herself because Thor is actually down for the count and she can’t handle that. Anyone else she’s worried, sure, but Thor… he can’t go down. He just can’t. And whatever poisonous bug had bit him was going to end up under her heel, if she had anything to say about it. No matter how big the stupid bug was.

“Why can’t we save everyone?”

“What?”

And he doesn’t sound like he expected the question. He doesn’t sound like he expected her out there at all. It sounds, and smells, like he was looking for a smoke break and found her instead.

“Why can’t we save everyone. You’re a superhero. I’m SHIELD. Why… why can’t we save everyone?”

“You’re looking for advice in the wrong place.”

Darcy swallows but she shakes her head, turning finally to the man. Bucky Barnes. He’s been through a Hell of alot from what she can figure out. She went through a meeting with Coulson saying what to do and not to do in his presence. Triggers, he’d called them, and Darcy had paid close attention. It all fell out of her head though when she needed this moment, today. She just… needed someone to at least try to understand.

“I’m not,” she says quietly under the wind. “I’m not, I’m not, I’m not. You’re a hero. You… you save people all the time. How does this _happen_? Why is this _allowed_ to happen?”

And she’s been so good. She hasn’t cried once except after the first time she shot someone and then after the first time she killed someone. She’s accepted these things that shouldn’t be real but are. She’s fought for what’s right when everything seemed a nice shade of grey instead of black or white. She’s done things she’s not proud of but wouldn’t change, handing off papers that worked destiny in a different way.

This was a new normal. She should just accept it and move on like she had been doing.

Darcy coudn’t.

Not this time.

There’s a pat to her shoulder as she places the slightly longer sleeves of her jacket up to her eyes, not sobbing but just letting her tears come. It’s awkward, of course it is, but she doesn’t have anyone else around and she thought she’d be alone out here and she was wrong.

Maybe it’s because she’s doing it silently, with only the barest hitch to her breath that causes white mist to float in front of her lips. Maybe it’s because the heavy sigh she hears means that the man knows what to do but doesn’t want to do it. Maybe it’s because they keep bumping into each other and nothing happens and that is just odd for the both of them. That it’s strictly business and nothing else, and yet they know each other’s eye colors from how long they’ve flicked their gazes that way.

But Darcy finds herself with an arm around her waist, two in fact. From behind, just a gentle squeeze and he’s gone.

And somehow, that helps. Because maybe she’s not a superhero. And maybe he doesn’t understand completely. But for a minute, or even a second, there was someone right there with her and Darcy thanks the wind and hopes it reaches him as she dusts herself off and gets back to work. Gets back to the drudge of it and the good of it. Gets back to pulling herself into medical at the end of the day to fall asleep at Thor’s bedside because Jane isn’t there and he needs someone who loves him to wake up to.

Maybe, just for a minute, she thinks as she drifts, they could get along.


	3. Ghost Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Humanity had almost died because their bright stars had come crashing down to Earth. And weren’t as friendly as they’d like to hope.

Puente Antiguo, once a very small town, was now thriving. A tourist spot to see where the great and mighty Thor had landed, because locals had remembered him and the story about that hammer? It had gone far and wide until a news station had picked it up much, much later. Pilgrims of old religions and superhero groupies all came and went, while the diner sold their pie and made sure to frame that coffee cup that had been replaced.

Darcy couldn’t quite handle that, because she remembers when it had been quiet and lonely and empty.

On fire, too.

But this is her assignment for the next three months. Puente Antiguo has too many people coming and going, so they need to move the facility. Just a little bit more into the desert but it still has to move. It needs rebuilding anyways after the… Tesseract portal mishap. And she’s looked it up, it has a number ID and everything, but that’s what she thinks of it as right before Manhattan. Which was a whole load of bad news bears, in and of itself. Stupid portals.

It makes her sick to her stomach, too, to read that. Because the same god that had sent fire and brimstone to her little town had also basically opened up a portal to Hell in the middle of a SHIELD base. And she has a harder and harder time thinking that Loki was not the Devil incarnate…

Of course, it’s been a few years that she’s been working for these people and she’s seen the man who might actually be the Devil, red with a tail and evil as sin. He’s not here and she has the designs for the building and where to go on GPS in a small case attached to her wrist. It’s cuffed there because of security and Darcy is very uncomfortable with that.

It’s a big responsibility, to deliver all this paperwork to the head of the facility. But she’s sticking around to help move because she’s quick with a pen and flipping through what needs to be kept and what doesn’t. She’s the one that gets to go through their file room (not alone, that’s crazy talk, that is), and so decide what can be destroyed and what has to stay and what is backed up about a million different ways on servers she doesn’t even know exist other than she’s been told that the information is being ‘taken care of’ and that’s that. And she doesn’t mess with the big guns. No Sir or Ma’am.

It takes a little over two months to clear everything out from the archives, in which time a building to house them has been erected in the super secret location right over that’a way.

People start to move not long after and Darcy gets to deliver the condemn orders for the building. It seems far too appropriate and she hesitates the night before. Surely someone could use the spaces still available and she does what she’s done with Jane a thousand times it feels like. Jeans are thrown on, a sweater and then a bulky jacket that’s three sizes too big for her because it’s her brother’s. Boots made for snow but used for cold sand and then she’s out with her hat and flashlight to the old site that her trailer is outside of.

Impromptu housing has its merits and it was better heated than Jane’s little, metal trailer for sure. But Darcy missed Jane’s place, the empty car seller that they’d taken over for the lab and kitchen area. And she missed this, walking under the stars, though they’re a bit harder to see with all the lights from town.

No one is down this way. SHIELD protected property and it reads clear of all mystical and other elements. Safe for the general population and not the site of the Bifrost connection. So she’s alone and walking through cracked and sunk concrete, stepping over dust and grime and destruction. The place is eerie like this, the places that life and work had swelled up to study the hammer that ended up just needing a bit of lock and key maneuver. It’s insane to think about, really, and Darcy shivers as she tucks down further into her coat.

Cold and lonely. Like she remembers. But… broken. Destroyed. Burnt and crumbling.

Ruins of another time, before everything changed.

She finds the highest point of the crater she can, sitting down and away from exposed rebar. Her flashlight goes off and she’s worried about snakes and scorpions but it’s worth it. The stars out here… they’re to die for. And she realizes a bit too late that they almost did.

Humanity had almost died because their bright stars had come crashing down to Earth. And weren’t as friendly as they’d like to hope.

Her gaze turns down with the thought and she sighs, bringing her feet up and tucking her knees to her chest. She’s mid twenties now and she still sometimes feels far too young for all of this. Especially when a few rocks move behind her and she grabs her flashlight, slipping into the crater a bit and quickly finding her footing and the taser at her hip.

“That wouldn’t have saved you if I hadn’t have made noise.”

“You did though. So guess I lucked out.”

“Only because I wanted to.”

Green-blue eyes peek over the edge around one of the slabs of haphazardly cracked concrete and there’s only a shadow that looks a bit more solid than everything else around. Though the stars can be seen, the sky isn’t clear, and the moon is hidden for a time behind a cloud. Darcy gently and as quietly as she can, scoots herself a bit further behind her protection as a hiss fills the air and a match is struck, lighting up a cigarette. And a face.

“Those things will kill you,” Darcy says softly, climbing out of her hole in relief at the sight of the security detail that was sent with her. She expected armed guards, agents in numbers. But they’d only given her one, though her small band of merry men and women helping her locating, identify, and move boxes had been armed and protected.

“Not any faster than some of the things I’ve done.”

“Doesn’t make it any better. But I guess it doesn’t matter to you superhero types.”

And it’s the first time she’s acknowledged that yes, she does know exactly who he is. The metal arm kind of gives it away and Darcy wraps her arms around her middle, scrunching her nose at the smoke and deciding that maybe ignoring him will make him go away. So she sits in the same moment, back where she was and huffing at his next words.

“Think you have me confused with someone else.”

“You’re all superheroes to me.”

“What ‘all’ are you talking about?”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“Then I wouldn’t be me, doll.”

He makes her want to grind her teeth, stomp her feet, and poke at all at the same time. There’s just something about James Barnes that makes Darcy Lewis want to kick things. Yell at the heavens. Possibly swoon if he could just not counter everything she says.

But he does. So there they are and she curls back up into herself, using her brother’s jacket as a barrier now that she knows it isn’t someone coming to steal secrets or kill her. Or both. Both was actually always an option and Darcy for the millionth time in her life wonders what in the world she’s gotten herself into. And it only is asked again when a warm body plops down next to her, smoke gone from the air but lingering on the man.

“Why are you out here, Agent Lewis? The last of these places start getting torn down tomorrow.”

“It’s just Darcy. I’m not in a suit, I don’t have my badge, I’m just Darcy.”

“Alright then. _Darcy_ , why are you out here when people know what this place is, or at least the wrong people do, and you don’t even have a gun on you.”

“Because I wanted to remember.”

“I didn’t know you were here...”

“I wasn’t. But I know what came first. And I know what came after. This was one of the parts I didn’t know. Don’t know. I get a little more of it every time I see how the building collapsed or a burn mark on the ground. I don’t like it.”

“Then why are you out here?”

“Because it’s life. And you don’t have to like parts of it to live through it.”

Darcy’s gaze comes down from the stars once more, this time landing on the man at her side. She shivers again, curling tighter into her jacket, before she gives up and scoots a little closer. James is warmer than she is and she’s hardly about to freeze, but it’s nice to not be so alone with these kinds of thoughts.

They stay there, silent. When James goes for another cigarette, Darcy flicks it away from him. And he’s so surprised that she’d dare that he doesn’t move it away from her in time. And he stares at her a bit, even though she resolutely stares at the crater.

That she sees fire in her memory, an exploding car and Selvig going down probably should be something she talks to someone about. But they all have their demons to bear and she supposes she’s lucky those are her only nightmares on this job. Especially with the man sitting next to her, that she has the barest bones of a story about. Nothing more, nothing less. She doesn’t have to know history to know a big chunk of his life is missing between when the Captain knew him and now.

It just helps her keep from running her mouth around him. Or trying to. If she succeeds is normally up to him.

Smartass.

By the time dawn is threatening, Darcy is fading. She’s capped her lips from licking at them and biting at them. She’s frozen her fingers because she hasn’t put them into her coat pockets or brought gloves. And she’s falling asleep on her knees, forehead against them as she slowly starts to slip forward.

An arm snaps out when she actually goes, keeping her from pitching into the crater and the woman jolts. She’s not exactly coherent but she does mumble his name. That only seems to spur him into action and Darcy is scooped up.

Well… this hadn’t happened for awhile. Still, she knows exactly what to do and she tucks her nose against the neck of James’ shirt. Arms wrap around his neck before Darcy is curling into his arms, uncaring of most things because she knows she’s safe.

He is, after all, a hero. And she mumbles so against his chest.

That his steps pause for a half a second when she does so won’t be remembered in the actual morning light. Which was quickly approaching, though Darcy knew no better as she was set on her bed, shoes removed, and tucked in.

Early the next afternoon, the buildings are signed off to be torn down.

That evening, Darcy shoulders a bag and is guided onto a plane back home, a cooler metal hand on the small of her back.

And that night… she slept with her head against the side of the plane and woke up with a blanket around her that wasn’t there before.

This time though, she doesn’t have to guess who it was, because he’s sitting right next to her flipping through a newspaper in agitation that there’s nothing else to do on the damn plane. That she tucks the blanket firmer around her and hands over her game system before she drifts back off, toes tucked under James’ thigh, is her own little way of showing their common ground.


	4. Beat of the Music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Darcy/Bucky, learning to tango
> 
> And Darcy Lewis has been in this situation before, flashbacks of classes in high school and motioning silently over people’s heads to friends in the room to pair up popping bright before her eyes.

It’s for a wedding. A very important, needs high profile protection, and can’t possibly go off without a hitch type of wedding. Only it better get going and go through without a problem, because Pepper Potts is going to kill Tony Stark if he decides that it’s a good time to let the paparazzi know where the wedding is to ‘prove a point’ like the last time.

She will not have Happy once more in the hospital. She needs one of her best friends there at her side for this… festival of sorts. Swarming is more like it, every time the CEO walks out the doors of the tower or mansion or work.

That did not explain why _she_ was here, however.

Darcy Lewis stood at the sidelines of a right out of the movies dance hall, having even gone out and gotten a swishy skirt that shows off her fabulous, SHIELD exercised legs. She idly wonders when some Patrick Swayze type will come in and sweep the lovely lady in front of the main group off her feet, despite Stark being there in full regalia and moving smoothly on his shoes.

Who knew the man could dance, really? Darcy sure hadn’t and she crosses her arms as she watches Pepper assemble everyone before the instructor comes in.

And it’s easy to see why the woman is so good with Stark Industries the way she manages a group full of super heroes, some that can’t be more than five year olds when they get in the same room together. Because honestly, Barton trying to impress Agent Romanoff (Natasha, she asked to be called Natasha and give the woman what she wants, Darcy wasn’t gonna say no, no sir-e-bob) was not working.

Especially when he slid across the floor and without the regular padding of his uniform, made a horrible squeak in those pants of his. It made Darcy wince and then snort, turning it into a cough when she felt eyes on her.

Speaking of which…

Turning to see who was where, Darcy found herself coming eye to eye with a broad and sturdy chest. A small noise from her and a quick step backwards had the young woman huffing at the man in front of her. Of course it would be him and her lips curl downward.

“Make noise when you walk, Barnes.”

“And if I don’t, what are you really going to do about it?”

“Give me a week, I’ll think of something.”

“You’ll forget by then.”

“No, you’ll do something else by then and I’ll have to double up.”

“I’d like to see you try. What are you doing here anyways? I thought Coulson would have you chained to a desk somewhere in SHIELD, paperwork up to your nose.”

“Psssh. I was _invited_ , thank you _very_ much.”

“Yeah well, you’re not the only one. Still doesn’t answer the question.”

Bucky pulls a small envelope from his pocket and shows off the neat print of one Ms. Potts, soon to be Mrs. Stark. And wasn’t that a scary thought, Tony Stark married. It made the junior agent give a full body shudder before waving her own card in front of Bucky’s nose.

“Why were we invited to this shindig anyways?”

“Shindig?”

“Hey. You have your words, I have mine.”

“Technically, I asked you first.”

All words were cut short, however, when Pepper stood before the room and introduced the person who was going to be teaching them some dance moves for the reception of the wedding. A few steps, here and there, shouldn’t hurt right? Darcy drifts forward, listening and smiling, ending up next to her boss. Coulson is eyeing everyone in the room, though he moves to someone named May's side, so she knows she’s not going to be lucky enough to be paired up with him.

Damn. Then who the heck?

Didn’t matter much when the first steps had everyone in lines and by themselves. Didn’t matter much when the soon to be bride and groom were put in front of everyone and shown how to waltz. It only turned backwards when a few more saucy steps were thrown into the mix, Ms. Potts asking specifically for something a little looser and Tony snapping a holographic rose between his teeth.

(And couldn’t JARVIS work miracles from that man’s phone…)

That’s when the trouble starts because that’s when everyone starts to pair up. And Darcy Lewis has been in this situation before, flashbacks of classes in high school and motioning silently over people’s heads to friends in the room to pair up popping bright before her eyes. The only problem is that the people she knows have partners already from SHIELD, and the ones that don’t, well. Thor has Jane and Phil has May and there’s a frown line between her brows as she figures she doesn’t have to learn these particular moves that the instructor is showing in the front. She can sit out this once, actually it might be better. She’s not made to…

A swirl from someone taking her hand and Darcy finds herself chest to chest with the one person she did not expect to know how to dance more than a few shuffles from the old days that he was showing off earlier.

“You can dance?”

“I’m a spy. I know a lot of things.”

“But you can tango?”

“Can you?”

It’s whispered words and they’re in the back of the group. No one has noticed them yet, at least not as far as Darcy can tell and her ‘agent training’ has her far more aware than she’d really like to be of her surroundings at all times. But she finds a warm hand on her hip, sliding lower slightly and her face goes boiled ham red.

“Watch it,” she hissed softly, eyeing those around them. “You’re an ass.”

“Dance with me.”

“You’re. You’re serious.”

“I am.”

“You hate me.”

“I find you annoying at the worst of times.”

“So you don’t hate me?”

“I don’t hate you.”

Darcy has enough sense to quit while she’s ahead, smile spreading over sticky, candy red lips as she looped her arms around the assassin’s neck. Besides, Darcy had always had a thing for the dark haired, thick chested ones. That this one had a metal arm and was a superhero? No biggie. That was her world, her life.

That this one was James Barnes, the one that sat across from her at lunch when she was by herself, only to make sarcastic quips that could rival her own. Well. That was a different matter entirely. One she’d have to analyze later. When his arms aren’t around her and they’re not slowly creating a scene.

Not that she really notices. Darcy is caught by a dark gaze and her breath has left her as gentle but firm hands guide her through where she’s supposed to be. And then there’s those hands sliding across her waist and hips, leaving her wondering if she’s missed something very, very obvious in their cat fighting. Because this man was broken and bruised and old as sin. But wasn’t he also aware of the world she lived in, worked in? Aware of the horrors that they could come up against and be there to know what she meant, could be told what she did, even when her clearance said no one under a certain level could. Wasn’t he the one that was always there when she was looking for a fight, or to crawl into a hole?

Whatever he teaches her in those few moments, whatever steps she’s been led in, it’s not a simple tango. Her hands find his arms, shoulders, chest. His fingers find her waist and one hand even traces her cheek. And it’s like they can’t look away from each other.

Or they can’t until there’s a fatherly cough and Bucky glances up from where his nose is just brushing Darcy’s jawline, the young woman caught with her back to his chest and she blinks.

Oh. Oh hello Phil Coulson, mentor and hard ass fatherly figure of SHIELD juniors.

Darcy makes a squeaky noise before her smile flashes and she clears her throat. Let it never be said that she let herself get so caught up in something she didn’t have words for it. She tries to ignore the heat on her cheeks, the breath on her neck, and the way Bucky’s arm is still pressing her to him, snug across her waist.

“ _So_. How is everyone doing with the tango?”

“I could ask you the same question, Ms. Lewis.”

“Buck…”

“Quiet, Rogers.”

A flurry of movement and Darcy finds herself being dragged out of the dance studio, fingers laced with Bucky’s as they make an escape. Of course, she’s a bit in a fog, just goes with her partner, and ends up out on the street and soon in a car, before she blinks and yelps and reaches over to punch Bucky in the arm.

And it’s his good arm, too, so it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it could as she shakes out her hand.

“What was that!?”

“What was what?”

“There was. We were. You know _exactly_ what I’m talking about.”

“We were dancing.”

“That wasn’t dancing.”

“Then what was it?”

The car she’s in is zipping through traffic, tearing around corners, and Darcy is entirely too focused on the man in the driver’s seat instead of her impending doom. Honestly, she’d been in car chases before. Try getting lifted from a car in motion by one god of thunder. Then see if it’s really all that bad to speed through New York and come to a sharp halt.

Hell, she’d been through worse in training as she swings herself out of the car and tries to her place herself. She wants to go home, or at least back to the dance studio. But Bucky has brought her to someplace unrecognizable and Darcy bites her lip, flaking her lipstick before she’s once more got a man at her back and a strong arm around her waist. And the warm breath against her ear only makes her knees weak, because they’ve played this game before. Outside of work, when they’re together, they’ve always sat a bit too close. Lingered a bit too long.

“Come dance with me.”

It’s whispered words and Darcy swallows hard, nodding. He leads her up some stairs, and Darcy peeks into some of the rooms.

Maybe she _does_ know this place. It’s one of the many facilities that SHIELD has to train operatives in other skills. Miscellaneous skills such as ballroom dancing and which fork to use and formalities of foreign countries. And she follows, because at least now that she recognizes the place, she’s not so bent out of shape.

Okay, that’s a lie. She’s still bent out of shape. She just doesn’t know what to do about it as she steps into a dance studio not unlike the one they just left.

Music fills the air as Darcy takes to standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed and glaring at Bucky as he moves about the place to set things up. She doesn’t know what to do, they bug the Hell out of each other and yet…

And yet, it felt good to be caught up in his arms like that. So when he moves to her again, offering a hand, she accepts.

With a huff and an eye roll, but she accepts and allows him to pull her into his arms once more.

She gets a little adventurous the longer they’re there. Her fingers dance along his lines that fall under them when Bucky shows her where to put her hands and when. And Darcy isn’t immune to the other’s own touches, not when Bucky gently traces one of her legs to show her how to kick her feet out and when to turn into him.

They end up how they were, him at her back and her snug to him, breathing a bit hard. Enough to pant and lean back against him, exhausted but not necessarily tired. A good work out, enough to get her blood pumping. And then a handsome fellow at her back, breathing at her neck.

Darcy swears lips meet flesh and she shivers, turning into Bucky to meet him halfway.

Lips meet lips instead of pressing to her pulse, and as he grips her tight to him and slowly lowers her in a dip without breaking from her taste, Darcy can’t help but think she should have taken up dancing lessons earlier.


	5. Vintage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's young and wild and free. He is made of chains rattling and sometimes, he wonders if she sees it. 
> 
> She does. And that's what worries him.

Sometimes she can’t help him. Because sometimes, he looks at her and sees something wild and free and **young**. She can’t change her age and even if she could, she wouldn’t want to. She’s not going to be around forever, her bones are made of soil and salt and gaseous stars, not the denser material of the superheroes around her.

Which is why sometimes she can’t help. She can’t help because she doesn’t see it until too late. That he watches her from a doorway as she swings around and dances with Thor, laughing at something that only they two get. Instead of seeing the joy she gets out of life, a life with him, he sees the laughter and the vibrancy and someone he’s holding back.

Someone that will age where he doesn’t. Someone that could have a “normal” life without him, whatever that means.

Darcy, for one, is just about tired of it.

But she doesn’t know how to make it right, either, so she can’t say anything. Not a thing, damn it, and it’s starting to make her angry at herself. She’s smart, pretty smart at least. And she’s got common sense, something she wonders about in the teams around her (who jumps off a building cause they **can** , Cap!? Really!? REALLY!?), so she should be able to figure this out.

Should being the key word as she spends an evening on the balcony of her small apartment, bottle of beer next to her and feet dangling off the fire escape.

"You know, someone could snipe you easily from this vantage point."

"Good thing no one knows who I am, then, huh?"

"I know who you are."

"You are dating me. If you didn’t, I just jumped a whole flight of stairs on the creepy ladder."

There’s a soft chortle and Bucky moves down the fire escape a few more steps to crouch down and then sit beside her. She doesn’t hesitate to lay her head on his shoulder, metal arm or not he was more comfortable than the metal rod she’d been playing her forehead against earlier. She hadn’t even heard him and why didn’t he use the key she’d given him?

One of those assassin quirks, maybe. Or he’s still not comfortable people seeing him coming and going from her place, as if he can avoid her getting into some trouble that she’ll get into anyways from knowing Jane and Thor.

"You okay?" he asks softly after a beat too long, probably trying to figure out if he should say anything at all. He wasn’t one for many emotions, at least not openly. Perhaps that was another problem, Darcy thinks. She’s all emotions, all the time. "You seem kind of… quiet."

"You know when Thor comments I’m having a ‘thinking’ day?"

"He says you’re thoughts are very deep and would run the courses of every river in Midgard, if allowed."

"Good, old Thor. Metaphors aside, I’m having an evening."

"Oh."

It’s not a question but Darcy has been out here two beers ago. And she’s not exactly drinking them quick. She’s taking her time, dwelling on ideas and trying to think like Bucky does.

Frankly, it’s given her a headache.

"You gonna love me when I’m old and grey?"

There’s a deep silence and she’s startled him. It’s one of the many reasons he dates her, was drawn in by her in the first place. She can surprise even the unsurprisable. Darcy is fairly sure that most people hate that, it means they can’t account for every single person on every single continent and how they’ll react.

Bucky seems to find it a blessing in disguise. A lovely disguise, cause he also compliments her ass quite a bit. So.

"Too late, Mister. I’m guessing you’re gonna be here as long as possible then skedaddle."

"It’s not like that."

"Yes it is. If we survive that long-"

"You will."

“ **If we survive that long** ,” Darcy restarts, pointedly ignoring what Bucky’s said. “Then you’ve got that handy-dandy experiment stuff and I’m just me. So. It makes sense.”

"You. Don’t sound upset."

"I think I’m used to the world not being fair anymore."

She goes to stand but Bucky isn’t having any of that, it would appear. Because the arm around her waist, enhanced out the hooha, grips her tight. And then promptly back into his lap. Warm arm across her back, she’s lifted and Darcy makes a small noise, throwing her arms around his neck.

"I’m not going anywhere."

"Not yet."

"Stop it."

"No. I’m being realistic. In a world of heroes, someone has to be."

"Well it doesn’t have to be you."

She’s somehow made it into her living room and Darcy is frowning as she starts to kick. She slides from Bucky’s arms and he’s surprised again by how much force she can give off as she flails and wobbles on her own feet finally.

There’s a fire in her chest that hurts and she hates it. Because he’s here now and he won’t accept that in the future, no one knows what’s going to happen. She could fall through a crack and end up on Asgard. He could go down in a blaze of glory. The world could end and they could be on opposite sides of the planet, where even a phone call wouldn’t make it right.

"Listen, it’s not a bad thing," she says softly, puffing up to her full height. And it’s not very tall but she’s boisterous, which makes her seem bigger. "It’s just something I have to be aware of, you know? For my own sanity. I mean, time’s a bandit, right? I don’t have much of it, God only **knows** how much you have, but we’ve got another day together. I say that’s pretty good when the world tries to end every other weekend or so.”

She smiles hesitantly, almost trying to worm a smile out of the frowning man in front of her. It doesn’t work but it does make him move lightening fast. Which only makes her squeak, the hand on her jaw and the other on her hip nothing compared to the heat of lips on her own.

Wait, was that moan her? Good God, woman. He’s her boyfriend not. Not. Not… okay. He was pretty hot.

"Bucky."

"Stay with me."

"I didn’t mean-"

"Stay with me."

And he won’t give her enough air to say yes, which was the entire plan after all. To say yes to whatever he wanted because she’s holding on tight to her heroes. And her number one is the one that she’s locked her arms around, the man that is kissing her desperately in the middle of the evening, fingers curling into the back of her pajama shirt and her plans of watching a movie and eating a tub of ice cream fly out the window.

Because he’s here now. And maybe his hairline isn’t receding like she thought it would be on a man his age, and maybe one day they’ll both need fresh coats of paint. But right now, they’re timeless.

And tonight, time seems to be slowing down to a stop as her shirt finds itself on her floor next to his and her bed is extra squishy when he’s added to it. Mostly because she has extra things to lay on like a chest that she can trace forever and arms that keep her warm when they finally, finally fall asleep. Damn alarm says 3 AM, but that can’t be right, can it?

Maybe it is, if the grogginess that surrounds her the next day says the clock was right and she was oh, so wrong.

"Next time we do that, we start earlier in the day," she mumbles to herself, only to hear a soft chuckle from her side. Rolling to peek over at Bucky, Darcy opens her eyes wider to try and see him better in the dark. "Why are you laughing at your wonderful girlfriend?"

"Because she’s wonderful and curled up in the comforter like a cat."

"You stole all the sheets, I needed something to cover my derrière.”

"I protest. In bed, you need nothing to cover that."

"I’m dating a perv."

"You love me," he murmurs and Darcy doesn’t protest when he leans over her and kisses her soft and slow as she nods. But when he pulls back, he hesitates, groggy himself and sleep ruffled. "You don’t. Actually think I’ll leave… do you?"

Oh boy. She’s too tired for anything but honest. And she’s too old for anything but that, too.

"Depends. Sometimes, it can’t be helped. You go places I can’t follow," she murmurs, tucking herself onto her back and making sure all appropriate places are covered as she reaches up to pet through black hair. "But I don’t think you would on purpose. And really, that’s all that matters. Some folks don’t get it, but I don’t worry about it. You’re stuck with me, until the bitter end."

"Not bitter."

"It might be bitter."

"Won’t believe it."

"We shall see."

"That’s kind of the point."

"Ah. You do love me."

"Never said I didn’t, doll."

There’s laughter as she curls into his chest, petting over his shoulder and down to his hand, linking their fingers. And she can’t rightfully move yet, and not just from last night but because it’s too damn early after a late night to be awake.

"Timeless," Bucky whispers and Darcy’s head pops up again, looking up at him with a slow forming, sly grin.

"Vintage," she murmurs back, nipping his lip before she moves to get out of bed. "Classic, really."

"Why you little-"

There’s a whoop and Darcy just isn’t fast enough to get her feet under her and out of bed before Bucky grabs her. But the shadows from the night before have disappeared from her eyes and she’s kicking and yelling because tickling is **not fair** and he knows all her spots.

And really, who was she to worry about it all? It’s not like she knew what the future had in store anyways. Or, well, in the long term she didn’t.

Darcy had a pretty good idea of how her day was gonna go as she melted under kisses that slowly intensified and tickling fingers started to explore. Yeah. Definitely knew how her day was going to end up.


	6. Hell Bound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky, as the Winter Soldier, accidentally runs into Darcy on a mission. Afterwards, he finds himself returning to her again and again, though he had no memory of before. 
> 
> [Tumblr prompt fill]

He knows her in a thousand different lives. A fixed point in his time and space.

And she never questioned it.

Never questioned the memory loss, never asked what was going on. It’s only after the fact, after meeting her once and feeling sick, that he starts to remember. The way her balance wasn’t very good when she was very young. Her face in the rain and fingers curling into his. The way that she smells like vanilla after a shower and he definitely shouldn’t be there but she’s not going to tell him to go. The way her voice drops when he kisses her neck.

He remembers in pieces. That’s… much worse, he finds, as the memories start to play out in technicolor at night. He’s only seen her once, he swears it.

But his mind tells him differently about this stranger.

Because she’s three years old and tumbled into his knees on a rainy night at a mall.

He’s had to complete his mission. But he also had to eat. And that has led him to a food court, because it’s open and there are plenty of people milling about and it’s someplace that the Starks wouldn’t be seen. Lower end of town, someplace with window shoppers and new families living dime to dime.

James Barnes doesn’t know what that’s like. Even if he remembered, he wouldn’t. But the more he watches these crowds, the more he wonders if there’s something he shouldn’t know. It’s a niggling in the back of his head, something striking out because he’s close to… somewhere. He’s in New York, that’s what it is. But why is that important? He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t want to. It’s not part of the mission.

But then, neither is the little girl that slips as he’s walking out. It’s wet outside, a perfect cover, and tiny boots of a three year old can’t hold her up as she almost faceplants on slick tile.

His reflexes can, however, and she giggles up at him.

“Darcy! Oh my Lord.” A woman bustles up and the little girl, index finger in her mouth as she reaches up to pat his cheek in thanks, gets taken from him. “Thank you for catching her.”

There’s something that’s a bit dumb struck in him. Big, green-blue eyes have made him think of another pair. One that sends a pang through his chest that he’s forgotten someone important. The words snap him out of it, though, and the man looks up at the mother clutching the little girl to her chest. He smiles, something rusty (not as rusty as it’ll get) and she wiggles her fingers back, suddenly shrieking into a bout of giggles.

“It’s no problem, Ma’am,” he offers, something Brooklyn in his voice that he doesn’t recognize. Or really know that he’s doing it. Just another part of the mission. Can’t blow his cover. “Glad to be o’ service.”

He’s soon stepping away but he’s being watched. For once, though, it’s not by someone through a sniper rifle. It’s wide, innocent eyes and maybe that’s the problem.

Innocence. That’s what he’s missing. And he dismisses it.

(Sister. It was his little sister, he figures out as he sits at the bar in Avengers tower and watches Darcy play foosball with Thor as Jane paces to work out a problem with Banner. She’s nothing like Rebecca. But she’s innocent in the same way, despite all she’s been through. And she cheers with a goal, giddy like a child, as she does a victory wiggle that makes him smile as he passes through the room on his way to the gym.)

==========

Because she’s sixteen and wandering a street alone in a tea length dress that does all sorts of things to her curves and he needs an excuse for being out there in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania. He doesn’t know what kind of event she’s coming from, but it’s raining and something in him says a gal shouldn’t be out this late by herself.

Especially not on back roads, soaked through as if she’s trying to let something seep out of her through waterlogging it. He thinks he knows that feeling, and he follows on silent feet.

Or does until he’s close enough to hear the sniffles, the hiccups of suppressed sobs.

Oh. He should… turn around. Leave.

This isn’t part of his mission.

She’s stopped to sit at a bus stop, though he knows no buses are going to come until morning. And he finally approaches, his training telling him to disappear. Don’t let anyone see him in the vicinity. Don’t let anything blow his cover.

But she was crying and alone and dressed up with nowhere to go. So he slides in next to her.

“Guessing you don’t have a smoke.”

“Go to Hell, Mister.”

“Hey, hey. I’m just trying to get across the state.”

“Yeah well. I just got forgotten about at prom. So you can go away and leave me alone.”

“You upset?”

“ **You think**!?”

She turns towards him finally and he… thinks he knows her. Strangely enough. But if his cover is blown by someone who looks sixteen, then he deserves to be found out. The bag on his back holds his rifle and he needs to just. Get out. But she’s got makeup running down her cheeks and there’s nothing he can do about it.

That makes him hurt. Seeing a lady like her cry makes his chest feel constricted and he’s willing to bet that in another life, he cared a lot.

Not this one, though.

“You look like a raccoon.”

“You’re. You’re… You’re an ass.”

“And you’re crying pretty hard over a guy that was probably one too.”

“What do you even know, huh?”

“I know that a dame wearing that, all done up, shouldn’t be forgotten about.”

She can’t process something he’s said and the assassin doesn’t know which part it was. He’s got a stare that doesn’t matter and she’s got something about her that makes him want to reach for her. Soft and curvy and things better left to different people.

But different people weren’t there. He was. And he reaches out with his good hand to tuck wet curls behind her ear as she bites her lip and cries.

“Are you like, some sort of homeless dude that I have to worry about?” she whispers, shivering. “Because you talk funny and I. I don’t want to be alone.”

“You, of all ordinary people, have nothing to worry about from **me**.”

“I’m Darcy.”

“Want to dance, Darcy?”

“You. You can’t be serious…”

“Why not?”

His bag is dropped and his brain is already formulating a plan. If he’s got an alibi then he doesn’t need to get out of dodge so quick. And then he can figure out why he feels like he’s slipping. It seems every time they need him to do something, whoever ‘they’ are, he feels like he’s missing more of himself. Or really, missing more of someone he doesn’t know but keeps a hold of inside.

Hand extended, he realizes he’s in trouble when she takes it. And he’s trained assassins, watched them move with grace and prestige and take each other out. But he can’t remember a time he just did something for himself.

Well. Once or twice. There was a span of time he could somewhat remember. A woman with red hair and long legs and a dizzying right hook.

This isn’t her, but in another life she could have been, couldn’t she? There’s grace there, style, and she’s the opposite of everything he knows. Except for the cold part. Everything he knows is cold and she’s now lumped into that.

That won’t do, so he pulls her close.

“Come on, sweets. Let’s get you warm.”

“How. How do you plan on doing that?”

“Don’t know yet. But I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

Assassin was his title, but that came with a myriad of skills. One happened to be dancing and he took this girl in his arms and spun her around and around. There’s nothing going on but the rain and the man finds himself too close. He’s found a craving that he feels the need to fill and he leans in, brushing his lips across hers. A gasp and he realizes that this Darcy’s breath is warm, warm, warm. And that her skin care warm under his touch if he does it with the right hand, smoothing down her arm and then pulling her closer by her hip.

He can work with that. Goodness knows he can and arms wind around her waist as she pulls gently at his hair and opens up to him. There’s no finesse, and he feels… young. How young was he before all this?

He doesn’t remember and when he breaks away, he thinks it was very young, indeed.

“Warmer?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Good.”

“You gonna take off like my date did?”

“You know what? Not right now. Come on and sit with me. I’ve got someone picking me up. Soon.”

“O-okay.”

She stays with him, which seems to be rare for both of them. Because her head ends up on his shoulder and really, he’s signed her death certificate by doing this. But instead of him being picked up, she is. By a father who looks ready to kill and for once, the assassin is glad it’s not him in the line of fire. Maybe it’s something to do that with the love he can see in the eyes of the other man around this little girl, enough that he shakes the hand of an assassin for keeping her safe that night.

Or maybe it has something to do with the curl of wet fingers into his own when she says goodbye, remembering what it’s like to kiss her solid and sliding. Or the way she smiles, soft but still insecure for her age, a confidence hidden behind it that is growing that he wishes he could see more often.

They pick him up twelve hours later at the same bus stop and he hasn’t been able to remember anything but big, green-blue eyes of a little girl since he’s said goodbye.

(It’s not the start of his breaking protocols and programming. But it’s one of the things that stands out to him. That reassures him that he **was** breaking them down, now that he looks back at it. Darcy slides by on her socks and he remembers wet lips and a rain washed face, a dirty dress and swinging her closer with every spin. She doesn’t even look at him here, where heroes stand shining. But one time she did, and he figures that’s enough as he slips from the room.)

==========

Because hers was the window he climbed through to get away from the cops when he broke his programming too far and couldn’t kill the ambassador’s son like he’d been told to.

That boy was just a kid. Just a kid… lanky, skinny. Asthma. Why was that important?

He couldn’t do it.

It’s a college campus like any other and it’s someplace he doesn’t know where. That wasn’t part of the mission, knowing. Or it wasn’t anymore. Seemed they were keeping him on a tighter lease and the assassin couldn’t blame them. He was remembering, in the vague sense of the word. He would know things on instinct. That he **was** remembering but not **what** he was remembering. It was frustrating to say the least and this time, when he tumbles through a window, it’s into a girl’s room and she points a taser at him.

The assassin flips it out of her hand before she can pull the trigger, instinct kicking in as he covers her lips and presses her to the wall, hitting the light and glaring at her to be quiet.

There’s recognition in her eyes and she stops struggling, going limp against him.

Strange, but not something he’s going to question as the flashlights roam the side of the building. He looks for a door, sees one to what could be a hallway and one to somewhere else. It’s that somewhere else he takes her, forcing her before him and it’s only then that he realizes she’s got her hair all wet and her pajamas on. And the only reasons he really registers it is because they walk into a cloud of vanilla and he has to pause to breathe, the bathroom hemming him in and making him drop his hand as he stumbles.

He remembers that smell… was it cookies? Christmas cookies. But that wasn’t how they celebrated where he was from.

They didn’t celebrate in the Red Room. There were no holidays. So how…

“What the fuck, man!? Are those the cops? Like the real cops?”

“Yes. And yes.”

“Holy fuck. Just. Shit on a cracker. What the actual fuck.”

“Stop talking.”

“Oh. You don’t even know, dude. That’s never gonna happen.”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.”

But he slumps against the wall and is out like a light before he can say anything else. That he wakes up in the tub, pillows at his back and blanket over him, worried woman above him, is definitely not how he remembers passing out. Or the normal way he usually wakes up.

James can say, however, that it’s far preferable to waking up on a lab table with men immediately telling him what to do. The sight is, by far, more attractive here.

“You passed out,” she whispers, kneeling at his side and wiping his brow with a washcloth. “You didn’t seize but you sure as Hell hit your head. I wanted to call the doctor but.”

She gestures and James realizes that his arm is on display. The room beyond the door is still dark when he does more assessing of the situation and he finds that this woman is sitting on the side of her tub, night gown hiked up, and eyes scared. He’s done that and he wishes he could punch himself in the face.

What he doesn’t expect is his true arm to come up to cup her cheek. Or that she’d lean into it, because frankly, he’s just crashed into her place and unarmed her without a thought. Shouldn’t she be running?

Instead, she leans in and lets her lips rest against his thumb, watching him carefully, as if he’ll disappear if she blinks.

Granted. He might.

“You were in trouble. I kept you out of trouble. Do I get to know what’s going on or?”

“I did something I wasn’t supposed to do.”

“Don’t we all?”

“Not like this. I do one thing. And I didn’t do it. They’ll find me. And you can’t keep me out of that kind of trouble.”

“I don’t think you’re talking about the cops.”

“No. I’m not.”

She weighs her options before she kisses his palm. And James doesn’t know what’s going on, but he’s not going to waste this spurt of luck as he shakily goes to stand. She’s right there to help, this young woman in kitten pajamas and her hair a mess. One hand on his chest, the other around his waist, he gets out of the bathroom and flops into a bed.

He’s normally more graceful than this. She might be too, as she clambers up behind him and pulls him up there the rest of the way. James feels she should be more graceful, he **remembers** her like that.

Why did he remember a stranger?

“Thank you.”

“Anytime. You. You gonna take off like my date did?”

“You had a date?”

Something in the woman’s expression falls but she just shakes her head. Whatever she was looking for watching him so closely, he’s failed her in it. But she’s a strong sort, he can tell, as she curls up back to back with him and hits the fairy lights that have been switched on while he was out.

Cute. Too cute. Too innocent. He shouldn’t be here after all he’s done. And he knows he’s done a lot. He just… can’t think of it right now. Maybe later. It hurts his head, so maybe a long time later.

“Sleep.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Of course it does, you were the one that was running.”

“It’s just less black on my soul, sweets.”

The one off name has her breath catching and she turns over in her bed to face his back. Small though it may be, it fits them both. It would fit them better if he could just curl around her… but that’s a thought for a man not marked like he was. Not covered head to toe in blood like he was.

Not remembering didn’t mean not knowing. And James knows he’s an assassin. One that’s seen too much of the world and recently, been let out of his cage enough to know that something was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

“You remind me of a guy I met once.”

“Whoever he was, he wasn’t me. I don’t meet people.”

“Then what’s this?”

“A goodnight, sweets.”

“It’s Darcy.”

The name rings a bell and he wonders if he’s unconsciously gone looking for someone he knows. But he doesn’t **know** her, not really. He couldn’t. Could he? After all, he’s a ghost. A ghost that’s changed the world, but still nothing more than a shadow. Someone who comes out at night and plays the Boogeyman. Plays it well.

“Hello Darcy.”

“Don’t I get a name?”

“I don’t. Have one.”

“Bullshit.”

“Whatever, sweets.”

“Yeah. **Whatever**.”

With a huff she rolls back over and he can tell she’s upset. He must know her, but he doesn’t know from where. She hasn’t asked, just implied. Maybe she knew a bit more than she was telling. Maybe he just needed to get some rest and get out of there as soon as possible. He obviously was making connections he didn’t need. Or want.

It was dangerous to do things like this but, with the way he was feeling, he didn’t have much of a choice. So he falls asleep, curls up around his knees, and grips the knife that’s in his boot.

Just in case.

He wakes up very differently than just in case. He wakes up with his nose in a woman’s neck and Darcy is sound asleep, his arm wound around her and held tight. Protective. He doesn’t know why but it feels… right. Freeing.

Like he knows her. Like he should know her.

He doesn’t. Not one lick.

James goes to extract himself but there’s soon a small, fragile hand on his wrist. And that’s enough to still him. Because there’s something in his chest telling him to stay and there’s something in his head telling him to run. He doesn’t know which one to listen to anymore, because he can’t remember why he should stay.

“You could stay. You could hide here.”

“You’d end up worse than dead, Darcy.”

“I like you. I thought I’d made you up.”

“You woke up to me. I’m most definitely real. Let go, Darcy. Let me go.”

His arm slips from her fingers and he can tell she’s going to say more. But he’s already up and moving. Away from her, away from this. Whatever this was. He couldn’t just sit and watch someone innocent and kind give up everything for him.

James didn’t know who he was. But he knew what sort he is. And it wasn’t the kind someone brought home to dad. And he bets (no, knows) hers is scary.

She watches him from the bed and when he moves to leave, she reaches out again. This time, he doesn’t pause, just brushes by. And it kills him a little to hear a strangled noise behind him when he goes through the window. Because he can’t remember what he’s done for her to be upset with him about, but he feels guilty over making her upset.

(She’s too good, he decides as he watches her take notes through the glass of the lab door. She works so hard and has come so far from that college dorm room. And she doesn’t need the mess he could give. Not then and not now. Which is why he keeps walking, the pause an indulgence he keeps giving himself when she’s around. He has to admit though, vanilla soap in the bathroom, just sitting on the side of his shower for aroma therapy, helps put him at ease on the nights he tries to scrub himself raw to get the blood off.)

==========

Because she’s Jane assistant, a good woman with hard luck, and is literally running the opposite way he’s walking around a corner. Her bag spills and there’s another woman that’s passed him just moments before that he thought rather odd. Running to things was never his style, though. Running away was a whole different beast and he was quite familiar with it.

He’s been wiped recently, but when recognition hits the small woman’s eyes, he double blinks. And his head feels like it could split open the longer he stares, but it can’t be helped.

Especially when she catches him in a lip lock and then gathers up her things.

“I’m not waiting for you to go this time,” she says in a rush, words choked as she stands and wipes off a screen with the end of her long sleeve. “So I’m saying goodbye now and have a good life. I’ve got a scientist to catch.”

And then she’s off, pushing past him and he’s just an assassin. He shouldn’t know that girl but he does. Certainly he shouldn’t follow her. But that he definitely does. Because if his cover is blown, he needs to inform his superiors. If his cover is blown, then he needs to take out the hiccup and continue on with the mission. It makes sense and he ghosts after these two women, stalking them through the streets and finally watching them pick up pieces of debris in an old warehouse.

Scientists. That’s what they were, from how they were talking and describing what was in the other’s hands. But his lady, the one that had kissed him, was standing there looking like she’d sucked on a lemon all the same.

The joy of the hunt was gone from her eyes, something he’d seen in the seconds before they’d hit each other. There’s a slice of guilt that goes through him but he ignores it.

He ignores everything after that, except for following these two. One insignificant, one an anomaly.

They split up after a few hours in a lab, the one he’s more interested in going back to an apartment and flopping down on a sofa. He can’t tear his eyes away from her, even when she’s doing the simple things. Eating alone, washing the dishes, flipping through channels before bed. And that’s when something pings, because she changes into kitten pajamas that are old and ratty. Long used and longer loved, it looked like, as she curled up in bed.

Only, then he knocks at the door and when she opens it with a taser trained at his chest, he can’t even fathom what he’s doing. He just knows he wants to kiss her in the rain and hold her through the night and that he **has** before.

So he kisses her again, walking her backwards towards the bedroom only to have her kick out and catch him in the knee with her heel. It makes him rethink his plan, pause long enough for her break away and scream at him for being away so long. So long that she’s wondered if he’s dead or a dream or someone that is stalking her. Because this was getting creepy and he has to admit, it is if what she’s saying is true. Sixteen, twenty two, and now. Three different instances, same man, different actions every time.

“I’m a weapon.”

“And I have one. So start talking.”

“No. I’m. I can’t. You’ll die. They’ll know.”

“Then leave.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Not good enough.”

“I don’t. Want to sleep alone tonight. I want to be with you.”

She wavers at that but the assassin can also see her bolster herself up for something. Steel herself for something more and then she takes a deep breath. Calms herself. It’s been so long since he’s been around anyone but soldiers and techs that it’s almost disturbing to see someone with real, true emotions when responding to him instead of clinical answers or grunts to keep him purposefully out of the loop.

“What’s my name.”

“I don’t know.”

“Then you have to go.”

“Please, Darcy…”

“See. That’s all you had to say.”

“What?”

“My name.”

“But I don’t know your name.”

She quiets and James feels he’s missed something. Brows furrow and she drops her taser only to walk up to him and touch his head gently. The woman continues to check him over before she chews her lip. And it’s about the most adorable thing he’s ever seen, a thought that he didn’t know he could have anymore. Thinking someone was adorable.

“I’m Darcy,” she whispers, taking his hand. “And you’re Mr. John Doe. And tonight, I’m going to assume nothing’s wrong here and keep you with me until morning. Hopefully. You always disappear after awhile. But you don’t leave outright. I like that bit.”

“So. I can stay?”

“You can stay.”

It’s more than he could have hoped for, and he didn’t know he could hope anymore either. The cracks are getting too big and he’s going to start remembering soon. He can feel it in his bones, the only parts of him that haven’t changed despite the years. And he can tell it has been years and years and years since he began on this path.

He just needs to break through the cracks. Only knowing they’re there isn’t good enough anymore. Not for him.

Which is why when Darcy leads him to her room, strips him down, curls her arms around him, and noses into his chest, he lets her. Because she does know him. He just can’t remember how or why. It’s not important in that moment, though, because he feels good right here. And he hasn’t felt good in a long, long time.

They change positions in their sleep and he wakes Darcy up with slow kisses to the back of her neck. He mumbles his name to her as her voice starts to whimper, so that she has something to call out softly when her voice goes low and husky. And then he’s got hands in his hair and he doesn’t feel so alone, either. Fingers slide down, down, down and he’s never met anyone that responds so virally to him. So openly and emotionally and beautifully.

It’s hard to leave a gorgeous woman in bed, to say goodbye with bitter sweet kisses and knowing he won’t see her again or know who she is if he does. But he’ll get there.

One day.

==========

He didn’t know that his Captain had recruited Doctor Foster until it was too late. She was, however, one of the leading experts on Tesseract energy due to it’s ability to open up portals into other worlds. Selvig was the other and he was on her team. Which meant her whole team came to see Bucky Barnes, the living legend and back from the dead, who happened to have Tesseract energy in his head. Or had, at one point, to remember who he was fully.

Which is when he’d seen **her** and Darcy had double blinked but introduced herself as if she hadn’t known him. Which was a lie, or maybe for the first time, James wasn’t the only one to forget.

She ignores him for weeks after that.

Well, not ignores per say. He doesn’t make an effort to get her attention and she doesn’t cast it out for him to possibly fall into. That doesn’t mean he’s not watching, though. And frankly, that’s far more amusing and informative than having to try and figure out if anything or everything meant something, once upon a time.

Darcy Lewis, it turns out, is a proper riot. She likes ice cream for dessert and tea over coffee. She likes dogs over cats and is allergic to hamsters. She doesn’t find middle school humor amusing most the time, but she’ll fall off the sofa laughing at something called Monty Python. Her eggs are to be scrambled, her coffee closer to hot than warm, and her nightgowns now come with shorts because science doesn’t wait for people to get dressed. She can make him smile without pain in his eyes and she can make him second guess everything with an overheard comment.

She also doesn’t shower with vanilla shampoo anymore. Or leave her window open at night. Her taser is on her hip more often than not and she’s learned self defense from Thor. She doesn’t dance, claiming she doesn’t know how, and sleeps on her back instead on her side.

He’s changed her. For the better or worse, he can’t tell.

Weeks turn into months and even James has to admit that the staring is getting obsessive. More protective than creepy, but it’s verging on that line. So he bucks up his courage and follows her out onto the patio one night. Alone with each other already, it’s more private out here in the dark than inside, in the light.

“I think we might know each other.”

“I was waiting to see if you’d remember this time.”

“… Oh.”

“Yeah. **Oh**.”

It’s a strange feeling, guilt, but he’s getting used to it. What he’ll never get used to is Darcy’s hand sliding into his, though. Even if they fit together like they were made for each other. Lord knows why anyone in charge of a universe would pair this sweet, innocent girl with him, but James thinks he might have gotten very lucky somewhere along the road.

Sliding closer, he lets her hand drop in favor of letting his knuckles trace up her side before sliding his palm down her back and around her waist. He could get used to this remembering thing, if she keeps swaying closer like that.

“You want to get some dinner, doll?”

“I thought I was sweets?”

“You can be whatever you want. But I just want to keep you this time.”

“You promise?”

“With everything in my power to give.”

“Then lead on, Prince Charming. You’ve got a lot of making up to do.”

“… Fair point. Very fair point.”

They end up back in bed, Darcy’s hair fanned out around her in a mess and his own slicked back from sweat as he crawls up her shivering form. There’s no hesitation when she reaches for him, and there’s no programming telling him to leave this time. They’re different people, but it’s better this way as he hooks her knees over his hips and kisses her like she’s the only star in his sky.

Fallen to earth to guide him someplace that’s like home. Could be home, if he just sticks around long enough to make it that way. He can make her keen, but it’s the soft words afterwards that make his own knees shake.

“I’ll hate you forever if you leave again,” she whispers against his neck, breathing hard as he wraps around her and holds her close. “I will hate you and I won’t do this again.”

“I know. But you don’t have to worry about it.”

“You’re gonna have to prove that.”

“Then let me prove it.”

He did, by waking her up in much the same way they’d gone to sleep. By staying by her side the entire next day and watching the Avengers raise their brows over the two seemingly attached at the hip. And by coming back to her bed the next night, wrapping around her, and promising her tomorrow morning too.


	7. The Butterfly Effect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time he saw her, she was covered in sweat, alien guts and debris, but he thought she was the most glorious sight ever. 
> 
> [Tumblr prompt]

It’s some sort of… cocoon. And it’s moving around a lot to be anything good. So when he’s told he has to **protect** the freaking thing, Bucky is a little more than just wary.

"Captain, I don’t think this is a good idea."

"We know who’s inside, Buck. Just make sure nothing stops her from… hatching."

"Steve."

"Yes?"

"I hate you."

"Noted."

The way his voice carries over the headset, Bucky can tell that the Captain doesn’t like this anymore than he does. He bets if he could, they’d rip whoever is inside, out. And then be on their merry way. But since that doesn’t seem to be an option for whatever reason, they have to stay in the fight and keep these things away from… her.

Which her, exactly, was it anyhow? Bucky could hear Carol from Steve’s comm him and Natasha was on the network too, fighting a third front. Janet was buzzing around on the other side of this place and that was as many fingers as he could spare right now with incoming.

Jumping, he slams his boots into what he can only describe as a mutated cyborg and shoots at the fleshy parts he’s revealed with the force.

It’s good enough to make it go down and the soldier is fine with that level of quality right now.

"It’s thinning! The top shell has slid back!"

"Can we get her out yet?"

"Not yet, but soon. It’s disconnecting her from the system."

Ah. So that was the problem. There was a link and if they severed the link, it could do damage. He understood that better than he cared to and Bucky keeps his eyes straight ahead, feet backing him up to the pod.

"We have an estimated time?" he grumbles, sighting down his barrel and taking out two more trying to get into the small room they were occupying. "Or we just hoping it doesn’t take forever."

"Twenty minutes, tops. Once it breaks open, I’ll go and draw them outside again. She’ll be useless to them once the link is gone and they’ll focus on something else."

"Got it."

Janet really was a good lady. And gave simple orders that he could follow when Steve was taking a beating. Or that’s the way it sounded over the bud in his ear as he slid under an incoming arm that looked remarkably simple compared to his and crushed it under his palm.

There’s a squishy noise from behind him though and that makes Bucky pause. Because metal, robotic arms didn’t make squish sounds. Whole humans did.

He turns just in time to see Jan zip out a window to deflect more incoming and the pod open up.

Goo present, a girl gasps out of it, naked as the day she was born. Then again, everyone was naked when they were born, so why was that a saying? Dripping goop, she slumps over the side and breathes hard, coughing up a lungful of whatever that yellow liquid is.

Bucky is by her in a second, pulling off his gun and jacket to get her into something so that they can move. They’re position was compromised.

"You need to come with me."

There’s a gurgle before she looks up and Bucky doesn’t know her. He does remember pictures, however. Thor’s friend, what was her name… Dee. Darcy! That was it. What had they wanted her for?

"Wha?"

"No time to explain. Just need you to come with me."

"Cold…"

"Naked too. Come here, doll."

He wraps her in his coat and ties the arms around her waist for a makeshift dress. Then, slinging his gun back over his shoulder, he lifts her gently from the pod. She’s slick with goop and his hands slide, his metal one creaking as if to get away from whatever was covering her.

Her gaze is on him when he looks up and Bucky finds himself stuck in place. Because she has the biggest baby blues he’s ever seen and they’re so, so tired. Lines around the corners, dark coloring underneath, he wants to get her home wash her off and help her warm up.

"You can’t walk, can you?"

"Cold. Feel sick."

"I would too if I was in there."

"Egg. It’s an egg. That’s something like embryonic fluid, full of enzymes and shit. Synthetic from the bits of people that they don’t use when making the cyborgs. I’m gonna be sick."

"… You and me both, doll. Let’s get out of here."

He doesn’t think about it. Or he tries not to as he lifts this glorious woman into his arms and flees the scene. There’s nothing more to do, really, and he really can take her home. So he does, muttering into his earpiece that he has Darcy with him and they’re going to go clean her off. Someone says something about saving the fluid on her to see what they were trying to do and Bucky snaps.

"If you want to run tests, there’s an entire egg back there full of the stuff. Let her alone. I’ve got her. Heading back to the tower. Barnes out."

They’re about halfway there when she starts to kick. And he lets her down so that she can throw up more of the fluid that’s made it into her stomach. Darcy doesn’t look well and Bucky isn’t so great with the sick, but he rubs her back and hides her with him and continues to pet over her slicked hair.

"I’m really gross right now, aren’t I?"

"Yes and no."

"How is there even a chance for a no? I think I threw up on your boots."

"Not even this goop can hide the way your eyes shine when you’re angry about something, doll."

"Are you seriously flirting with me in the middle of a fight?"

"Just saying."

"Yeah well. Thanks. I still feel gross."

"Well. You’re still kind of gross."

"Thanks ass hat. Can we go now?"

He picks her up once more and if he’s gentler than before, it’s only because she’s got her head tucked into his neck and is slowly drifting. She’s had a hard day. Few days, actually. So he’s going to give her a break.

It’s not until after the fight, when he’s helped wash out her hair and removed the hardening goo from her body with gentle scrubbing that she shows up at his side, fluffy robe and thick pajamas and a red cape around her shoulders being used as a blanket. Bucky turns from where he’s been leaning on the railing, watching the city down below, and just kind of stares.

Because her eyes are the same. No matter what’s happened, he can tell what she wants if he looks at them straight.

Probably always could if he dared to look more.

"You saved me."

"It’s what any one of us would do."

"You cleaned me up."

"Anyone would have helped."

"You’re my hero."

"Maybe for today."

"James." There’s a hand on his arm and Darcy leans in, pressing her lips to his cheek. He has to admit, he does shut up. "Thank you. There’s coffee inside, if you want some."

"Be right in, doll."

The pink on her cheeks covers the paleness that still lingers under her skin. And Bucky finds something beat fierce in his chest as she smiles at him, padding back through the door and to the sofa beyond the windows. She’s one Hell of a woman, from the stories he’s heard. And she’s got killer looks.

But it’s more the way she chews her lip. The way her eyes scan the crowd and light up when she hits certain people in it. The motion of her hands as she talks and the lilt of her voice when excited. Her body moving when she wanted to get a point across, speaking in a thousand different ways than with just words drifting in the air.

She’s one Hell of a woman alright. But he needed a little bit of this kind of Hell in his life to balance out all the others Bucky figures as he kicks off the balcony railing and wanders inside to sit next to her.


	8. Take It Back Now Ya’ll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, he just likes to watch her dance.

The first clue that she’s doing something in the other room that isn’t cleaning is the clapping. And Steve is going to be there in **twenty minutes** , all he’s asked her to do is shuffle a few things around the living room. Mostly their clothes from the night before, and she’s seemingly done that. Because he’s seen her float by with her iPod across the floor and into his room.

But then she’d said the place needed a good vacuum. So he’d heard that go, along with watching her put her ear buds in as she’d gone by again.

It’s always that iPod. He’s picked it up once and all the songs on it were mixed and matched on playlists that had random names that only Darcy could make out. Well. Not only. The exercise one was pretty obvious.

The Supernatural one with Carry On My Wayward Son as every fifth song on the list?

That one didn’t make much sense.

To him.

Barton understood. **Somehow**.

Still though, he has to wonder what the clapping is about. Because he can hear quiet singing as well, and then a stomp. A brow rises as he finishes throwing together his gym bag.

And then he silently steps down the hallway, leaning in the shadows of the corridor to watch Darcy do something he can only figure makes sense with what’s playing through her headphones. Because watching her… he doesn’t think it’s just her doing it randomly. It’s too choreographed. His gaze narrows but his lips quirk.

She’s still the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen and watching her hop makes him want to chuckle.

And there’s the clapping again.

Bucky doesn’t think she knows he’s there. And if she did, he doesn’t think it would matter much. But Darcy’s eyes are closed and her body flows to the music he can’t hear, her movement somehow graceful considering what she’s doing. And he knows graceful, he trained Natasha.

Despite learning what it meant from the Widow, he’s never really been able to compare Darcy to anyone. Ever.

She’s too different. Too much… herself.

Arms cross and he doesn’t have his prosthetic on his arm. The metal shines openly and she’s never really noticed it except for a few times when they’d first met. And only then when she’d had too many beers with Thor and asked softly what else his arm could do other than, “Look rad and shiny all at the same time.”

There may have also been a question about oiling it, but she had said he’s no tin man, and then answered her own question with a, “Probably not” before curling up on the sofa of the then tower floor of one Asgardian and going to sleep.

She was still that adorable and some nights, he still covered her with a blanket same as he did then.

Right now, she’s just the brightest spot in the apartment, moving around the coffee table and humming something upbeat. He doesn’t recognize it but he knows that he doesn’t have to. Darcy enjoys it, that’s all that matters, and his fingers flex to curl around her hips. Slide up behind her and dance with her. Turn whatever she’s moving to and make it slow and steady and sweeping.

They don’t go to clubs, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a good time dancing sometimes. And that’s where his mind sits when the doorbell goes, leaving him a little startled.

Caught watching, though not really caught as Darcy rushes to the door and throws it open. One ear bud hanging down her shoulder, the other is still stuck in her ear and Captain America, himself, can’t help but blink at the brightness that is his girlfriend. Bucky smiles at that, something a little smug, because Steve and pretty girls was always fun to watch. Only more so here, because Darcy was like a rambunctious little sister and Steve just tried to talk his way out of it as she grabbed his hand.

"Cap!"

"Bucky ready to go?"

"You gotta try this. Oh em gee, with your skills you’re gonna be real good."

"Dee…"

"Come on! It’s fun!"

She runs around, almost fluttering like a moth, and Bucky takes a step back to stay to the shadows of early evening. But the movement catches his friend’s eye and Steve sends him a look of, ‘you best come out here so we can go before she does whatever she’s doing.’

He doesn’t move an inch as the song comes over speakers and Darcy has left her iPod in favor of stereo and taking Steve’s hands in her own.

"Come on. The song tells you what to do."

"This isn’t jazz."

"No. It’s not. But come **on**. It’s so much more fun. Trust me!”

… Apparently, they’re going to get **funky** and Bucky realizes why Darcy has been clapping and hopping around the living room. Watching his friend do the cha cha finally made laughter bubble out of his throat and Bucky leans over his knees, shoulders shaking.

But as if to show him up for laughing, Steve takes Darcy’s hand and pulls her in grinning to dance with him and he goes opposite of her so that they mirror each other.

"Holy shit! I knew you’d be good at this!"

"Well. I am a Captain."

"Oh shut up. Buck! Look!"

"I can see, Dee. Are you going to keep him or can we go the gym?"

"You’re no fun. Let’s see if I dance with you when you get home."

"I’m sure you will."

He’s moved to the living and Steve has stepped back with a smile to grab the bags, including Bucky’s in the hallway. Thankfully, he’s got his back turned as the assassin pulls Darcy in and kisses her soft and slow, leaving her breathless. That was always the plan, though, when kissing Darcy.

"I’ll be home late," he murmurs, his palm sliding against her hip. "Save the last dance for me?"

"Always," she breathes, fingers in his hair and smile on her lips. Those bitten red lips. He really should get going before he shoved Steve out the door and stayed with her all night. "Now go get smelly, dude."

"… You ruined the moment."

"We were having a moment?"

Her tongue sticks out between her teeth when she smiles, the teasing gentle and light. It makes him smile, himself, and Bucky moves back from her, hands lingering. Steve clears his throat and the other turns his back, stepping out the door with the Captain and taking his bag from him, listening to the bolt on the door lock before they go on their way.

"She’s really something else, Buck. I’m glad you found her."

Looking over his shoulder at the door, the faintest strains of something classical starting to waft from it now that she’s changed the song, has Bucky smiling just slightly. She really was something else, and sometimes, he just had to watch her to see the life he was making be worth it.

Worth the pain of memories and the nightmares, the sweats in the middle of the night and the drive to catapult himself into danger’s way. Worth the terror in chest when she’s somewhere he can’t reach and in trouble. Worth the knowledge that he’s not going to have her for his forever.

She’s just. Worth it to watch live so fully, and help him live at least a little bit between heart beats.

"You know what? Me too, Rogers. Me too."


	9. Pure Imagination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're connected by dreams before they even meet, Darcy turning his nightmares soft. When they actually do meet, it's a surprise, they thought the other didn't exist.
> 
> [Tumblr prompt]

"Wow. This isn’t your average Winter Wonderland. Did I make a wrong turn at Asgard and end up in Narnia? Cause let me tell ya, if that butt is on a fawn, I’m reconsidering some things."

It’s been happening for months now. And she never is quite the same in any of his dreams. But the point kind of is that he’s having dreams at all now, so James Barnes doesn’t mind so much. Maybe she was one of the many people he killed, and her face just… stuck with him. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t really care.

On the run from the only friend he can remember, this woman is a bit like a band-aid for loneliness.

"It’s a bunker."

"Oh good. I was afraid we were someplace cold and dark and **creepy**. So totally not a bunker.”

"It’s where I was made. I… remember. Somewhat."

"Made? Okay so, test tube baby. Awesome. Nothing wrong with that."

"No. My arm."

"Which arm?"

"This one."

"Dude. Why was only your arm made here?"

She makes him notice things. Things he doesn’t want to notice. Like the fact that here, he’s fully functional. He’s not been made into a weapon. He just carries one. A large sniper rifle across his back, a small pair of wings emblazoned across the handle of it.

Commandos. He was a Commando here. But his reflexes, how he moved, that was something not ingrained too far into him. He couldn’t even escape the death he could deal in his dreams.

Then again, he couldn’t escape this woman who was currently in puppy pajamas either as she looped her arm around the crook of his.

Fuzzy socks and all.

"You cold?"

"Well, I’m missing my fuzzy Scooby Doo slippers, so yes."

"Your what?"

"Never mind. You know, for a guy who always shows up, you certainly have none of my knowledge."

"Maybe that’s on purpose."

"Why wouldn’t every part of me know everything I know?"

She sounds so confused and Bucky smiles, something small and faint but there. Amusement flashes through him and he has to wonder why he’d choose someone like her to represent all the things he didn’t remember, but obviously knew. Or she wouldn’t be here, right?

"Maybe it’s part of being unmade."

The woman stops and considers, head tilting and too full lips puckering in a pout. Something soft and true that he would have kissed in another life. Nipped at and wondered if he couldn’t wipe away the lipstick to see what she tasted like underneath it.

That’s not his life now. No matter how hard he’d like to go back.

"I hope I’m not being unmade. That sounds awful."

"It is."

"Maybe. Maybe I’m being put back together again. See!"

She reaches out and touches some of the glass, concentrating and something blooms from her fingertip. A snowflake pattern on the glass and Bucky pauses, double blinks. That’s not… possible. Or it shouldn’t be. But then, this is a dream. A really weird, in full color, dream.

"How…"

"It’s easy. All it takes is hope and trust. Oh. And something I forgot. Dust."

"… Dust?"

The woman laughs and darts away from skipping through barren hallways. And the bleach smell gives way to something more tantalizing, something he follows after because it’s her wake. This strange, strange woman that haunts his dreams leaves the smell of… roses. No. Rosewood. And vanilla.

Something about it makes him feel warmer than before and he starts to run, watching the woman get farther and farther away from him. And then he’s dashing through a door, too far from her to see beyond it. Barreling through, he gasps and hands are put on his knees. So suddenly, there’s a strength in his left one and a stillness in the air. Something is… wrong. Very wrong. And the woman is standing in a corner, puppy pajamas still on but eyes wide and confused.

"You arm. That’s what you meant when you said you were made."

"And unmade."

Because between them is a bed, a table that shouldn’t have been a bed that is, and blood seeps into it despite the metal. Bucky steps back, rears and grinds his teeth.

But the woman steps forward, leans at the waist. He wants to tell her to go. To leave him his ruins and not come back. Would it even work? The message to his subconscious that has been broken open like a rotten apple, finally sliced to see the brown decay inside?

"It’s the color of ribbon, you know," she murmurs, fingers whirling as she concentrates. "Ribbon and roses and tulips in spring. I hate blood. I really, **really** do.”

And she looks so upset, brow furrowed and lips pulled down, that it’s hard to take seriously the ribbon and packages and fir tree limbs that appear across the room. The white stone at her back that was once an oven for tempering the metal turns into a fireplace. And music he hasn’t heard in so long, songs he recognizes but he doesn’t know if he could sing along to, soon start to waft around them. A tree in front of him, presents all around and a red, red, red tree skirt spills out under them.

How quaint. How fairy tale. How… How…

How strange. He doesn’t remember anything like this from even his time as James Barnes, a younger sister there to ruffle the hair of and watch open limited packages during the holidays.

Something was wrong. And Bucky steps around the tree to find the woman having gone very pale, very see through. A yelp from her and she’s gone.

He’s not even fast enough to grab her as he blinks awake and sits up in bed, darkness around him and the air conditioning having kicked on in the summer heat. There’s a stumble and he’s running for the door, out onto the balcony, and he stares at the lights of the city. Someplace he knows, someplace he should know at least.

Duality with a giant, gold light striking down in the middle of it as thunder starts to rumble in the air.

No. Something was definitely **wrong**. And from the open door behind him, James hears a beeping that is his phone. That’s Steve. Something’s happened. Something major. Something for heroes, and their sidekicks. Only, he wasn’t quite that, was he? Because he had the past he did, he had blood on his hands, and no amount of wishing on starlight would bring it to ribbon.

So he dresses and moves to find the tower. The tower that he should see as a haven but only sees as what the future has wrought that may or may not be good. Because it was technology like that in the wrong hands that created him.

What else could it create and destroy from the inside out?

"It’s Darcy."

"Who?"

"Darcy Lewis. She’s a friend of Thor’s and an intern to Doctor Foster."

"Why the flurry?"

"Because she was the first one down when Doom bots appeared. Or something like them. Doom is claiming no ownership. So we’ve got a new kid in town."

A woman, short with long brown hair rushes past them, and Bucky looks to his Captain to see if that was someone he should be worried about. The other just shakes his head and then hauls the assassin out of the way, Thor stepping through with a woman in his arms. Also short with brown hair, her lip is out in a pout with too full lips…

Bucky freezes and Darcy squeals, despite the cut across her cheek and the way her ankle surely isn’t supposed to be bent at that angle and was that her wrist in a splint?

“ **You**!”

It’s said in unison and the young woman reaches out with her other hand, cut along the palm and Bucky can tell from the wounds. She tried to defend herself.

"Good girl," he mumbles, strides lengthening as Thor moves her away and towards a safer place. "She gonna be okay?"

"Lady Darcy has always put up a strong fight," Thor assures, watching the assassin with clear, hard eyes. Bucky’s sure there’s going to be a good, long talk when they get back… "She is a fighter."

"She is right here. Dude. Who the ever loving fuck are you!?"

"Darcy, James. Buck, this is Dee. And we gotta go, pal."

“ **This** is Dee? You mean the girl that brings you smoothies and then seemingly disappears when you actually go to talk to her?”

"One and the same."

"Good going, Rogers." Though there’s a hardening of lines because Steve wanting to talk to a pretty girl. That had to mean something, right? Bucky swings around on his heels and heads out, only to be intercepted by a tissue box hitting the back of his head in the curfunkle.

"Yo. Pretty boy. You and me? Gonna have a chat when you get home. And you better bring that ass home, understand Soldier?"

Darcy has her arms crossed, peeking over the back of the sofa, and Bucky thinks she has a fierceness about her that is going to draw him in. A problem, but perhaps not a bad one. Still a problem though.

"Yes, Ma’am."

"Oh em gee, don’t call me Ma’am, I’ll kick your ass."

"You and what army, doll?"

"I remember this. You’re an asshole."

"Solid and proud."

"Certainly proud."

"Hey!"

That they end up with their own comm line because Bucky literally cannot be dragged away from the other girl without it seems to say something. And if Steve is laughing at him the entire way home on the Quin… well. It comes with the territory.

They’ll figure out all that mind junk later. Right now, he had a girl to attend to and to prod at some more to see what else she knew about him.

Too much. But then, it’d been a long time since someone had. So maybe it was about time to let someone else in.


	10. Shocked and Slightly Embarrassed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt: Where is my hairbrush? from Veggie Tales
> 
> For anyone not accustomed to Veggie Tales, you should probably look up the song first. A warning: Though Veggie Tales is a children’s show, this is not a children’s story. Thank you.

He should have knocked. He should have knocked on the damn door and then determined that he shouldn’t have opened it. He should have knocked and determined not only that he shouldn’t have opened it, but also that he shouldn’t even be in this apartment on this floor.

For Heaven’s sake… It’s his floor!

“ **What the Hell**!?”

The shriek that follows is pretty loud and Darcy flails, but at least her towel stays around her. For the most part. There was some slipping and Bucky might be a bit damaged but he’s not dead, as Steve would say. And Darcy is one of the more attractive females about the place. Okay, he has a school boy crush that gets him noogies from Steve, but as far as he can tell, no one knows but his friend.

Not that he’s thinking of Steve right now. Instead, he’s thinking of baseball and a special kind of Hell as Darcy throws a bar of soap at him on protective instinct. If that’s what it can be called, he’s not really sure.

"Don’t you **knock** , asshole?”

"To my own bathroom when I live alone? No."

"You hardly live alone. You’ve got a tower full of people."

"And not one of them is you. Explain." Shooting her a glare, Bucky crosses his arms. " **Quickly**.”

"Thor’s shower is broken cause of sexy, sexy times with Jane."

"… Okay. Next time, just tell me I don’t want to know."

"Ten four, good buddy. Now. Shoo."

Darcy waves her hands at him gently but he just stays in the doorway, leaning on the side of it and raising a brow. He’s not one to be cowed so easily and Bucky just stays stock still, much to the obvious annoyance and slight panic to the woman in front of him.

"Oh God. You aren’t going to make me walk down to Thor’s like this, are you?"

"I’m thinking about it."

"I’m wet!"

"I see that."

"As in dripping."

"For me, doll?"

And the slow smirk that’s started to form on his lips only grows when Darcy pauses, realizes what she’s been saying, and starts to scowl over the lovely pink that washes over her shoulders and cheeks.

Oh, he could follow that, for sure. And he knows that they like each other. He knows that as fact. Which is why she looks like she’s panicking, slowly but surely. For once, that stubborn and quick tongue of hers is slow to respond and Bucky uses it to his advantage. The bickering, the standing too close, the leaning against his side when they’re all squished into some Quin or elevator or any small space.

So he takes the liberty to reach out and run a hand through wet hair. Only to have Darcy wince and he quirks a brow as she rubs at her skull.

"My hair’s not brushed."

"… Come here."

"What!?"

"Come here."

She doesn’t move, frozen like an animal in sudden light, trying to determine friend or foe. And Darcy is trying to decide just that, but Bucky waits for the hesitant hand in his before he moves her gently to his bed.

Where she sits awkwardly dripping on the edge of it, trying to not get it soaked through. Bucky doesn’t mind so much, taken with the way she looks with her hair in curls and bobbing with water. Her lashes have caught some of the droplets and he grins, grabbing another towel on the way out and taking a knee before her. Setting it gently over her head, he rubs the water from her hair quietly. Or he does until he realizes Darcy hasn’t moved or said anything and that her breathing is nonexistent.

"Breathe, Darcy."

There’s finally a deep intake of breath, the woman having held it for goodness knows how long as he’d worked his way across her hair. Finally, when Bucky’s deemed the towel wet enough, so surely her hair must be dry enough, he moves around to sit at her back.

Which is when her head turns, a curtain of black curls being peeked through as she sits there.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because I can, mostly. Hold still."

A reach around and he finds what he’s looking for gone. Darcy is waiting patiently but Bucky is not exactly the most patience of men. So when his hairbrush turns up missing, there’s a soft curse and he lays his hands on Darcy’s shoulders, kissing the back of her neck unthinkingly, before he rolls off the bed to find the wayward comb.

"Stay."

Eyes round and clear, Darcy nods and Bucky somewhat flees, realizing what he’s done. Shuffling through the drawers in his (frankly, too big) bathroom, he can’t come up with the thing. And the curses only get more creative and louder as he goes.

Or they do until he hears a soft giggle from the doorway and there she is. Towel and surprisingly unembarrassed this time around as her arms cross.

Thankfully with the towel still firmly in place. He doesn’t think he could handle if it wasn’t.

"You lose something?"

"… Don’t mock me."

"Mock? Would I ever do something like that?"

"You are in a very precarious position. Naked, in my room, and with no where to go."

"Not naked."

"Towels don’t count as clothes, doll."

"Thongs do."

He chokes. Gapes. And Darcy snorts as she turns to sashay away, leaving Bucky’s eyes to go exactly where she’s wanted them to as he follows. It’s a good thing that he’s not expected anywhere as he moves wet hair aside, arms around Darcy’s waist as he starts to kiss at her neck. It’s a good sign when she melts and Bucky catches her.

Though he doesn’t catch the towel that melts from between them, he does catch her to his chest. And he’s fairly thankful that he’s only in his workout clothes. Because it doesn’t take much to shimmy out of sweats.

Needless to say, that thong doesn’t last very long. And Darcy pouts when she realizes it’s been broke.

"Ass."

"A very lovely one."

"So totally not what I meant."

"You know, your hair is only worse now."

"Thank you, oh wise one. Where **is** your hairbrush anyways?”

"God if I know."

"We should find you one. And, you know, get you a haircut. You look a bit homeless, dude."

"You don’t like it?"

"Home. Less."

"I think it’s alright…"

"Well that’s **peachy** for you. But the rest of the world thinks you need a haircut.”

"But then I won’t need a hairbrush."

"… I’ll get you a comb."

"They make those? Back in my day, we had to use sticks."

"Very funny, Gramps. But I talk to Captain Americass more every day and know for a fact, you guys just make shit up to screw with Stark."

"That obvious huh?"

"I have a history minor. So yes."

"Ah."

"Ah is right. Come on Bucko. Let’s go find your hairbrush."


End file.
